


Roundabout is a Pain in the Ass

by ember_alda



Series: Realms of Influence [12]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, annoyance and persistence go hand in hand, voiiiiis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-25
Updated: 2012-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-30 02:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ember_alda/pseuds/ember_alda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A scratchy fumble sounds out on the other end. Squalo gets really impatient so he starts yelling right way.</p><p>“EITHER LEARN TO USE THE GODDAMN PHONE OR DON’T BOTHER USING THOSE CLUMSY BASEBALL FINGERS TO DISTURB PEOPLE WHO HAVE THINGS TO DO!”</p><p> </p><p>or otherwise known as that time when Yamamoto annoyed Squalo into liking him.</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	Roundabout is a Pain in the Ass

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: _After the TYL arc, Yamamoto goes back to normal time and constantly pesters and tries to get the attention of the present Squalo who’s clueless about their TYL future._

 

Lately it’s been getting ridiculous.

Belphagor and Lussuria start noticing what’s going on, the way those envelopes are scattered, propped up on his desk like disturbing markers of some sort of cheerful infestation.

“More fan-mail today, Squalo?”

“WHO TOLD YOU TO COME IN HERE? I DON’T NEED YOUR OKAMA SPARKLES TO TAINT MY ROOM!”

“Ahaha~ I guess I was right. Don’t spend all day mooning over it, ok? <3”

Squalo throws the coffee table at Lussuria’s retreating back to slam the door shut behind him, Xanxus’ habits having a way of making their way around. Whirling back, he glares accusingly at the three plain letters haphazardly tossed on his otherwise pristine desk.

“What the fuck is that brat thinking?!”

It had started out of nowhere. Squalo was going about his business in the Boss’s southern palazzo headquaters, when in between the regular mailed dispatches, National Geographic, and beef heavy restaurant advertisements a simple white envelope tumbled out. Katakana was scrambled all over it in messy strokes and not so surprisingly, Squalo took one look before throwing it in the trash.

None of his business.

He didn’t know how wrong he’d been.

-0-

“Could you take another one with me in it?”

Yamamoto blinks, the baseball bat propped on his shoulder’s slipping as he nods happily.

“Sure Tsuna. Are you sure you don’t want to be in it, Gokudera?”

The ferocious frown that comes after that question is all the answer Yamamoto needs before he slings an arm around the Tenth.

“One, two, three!”

Click. 

Gokudera fawningly hands over the phone to his boss, Tsuna looking slightly embarrassed with all the compliments about how photogenic he is and how he should be a supermodel if he weren’t the Tenth. Yamamoto good naturedly joins in ribbing his friend before a thought comes to him.

“Hey Tsuna, could you send me two copies? I want to mail one.”

“Uh, sure, no problem. Do you have a pen-pal, Yamamoto?”

The look on Yamamoto’s face is warmer, somehow, as he smiles. “Yeah, it’s Squalo! I wanted to show him how my summer vacation is going.”

“W-what? You’re writing to Squalo?! Are you sure that’s a good idea?...”

“I don’t know, it’s just funny how we got along so well in the future, I can’t just ignore him now that I’m back, can I? That’d be weird.”

Tsuna recalls the fact that Yamamoto had been punched in the face by the other swordsman before being dragged away like a sack of flour for a hellish training session lasting several days. Not that he knew what went on in those training sessions but he doubted Squalo and Yamamoto were exchanging phone numbers and talking about each other’s favorite foods. Sometimes he wondered what was going on in his friend’s mind.

“W-well, good luck I guess.”

He knew how Yamamoto could be when he was dedicated to something.

-0-

It wasn’t until March that Squalo decided to rip open all those irritating letters. Like usual, he was consigned to throw away the one that undoubtedly came at the middle of the month, but the words stamped across stopped him…Along with the puffy Doraemon stickers holding cakes.

“To: Superbi Squalo. Happy Birthday!!!” In sky blue ink, followed by numerous poorly drawn stars and _were those hearts_?!

Like a man who cannot look away from Xanxus tearing someone’s face off, his hand moves on it’s own to rip open the offensive thing, unable to stymie the automatic reflex to want to find out _how in the hell Yamamoto knew it was his birthday_. 

“Hey, Squalo. Happy Birthday! Turning 23, wow, I hope you get a good cake this year. I would have made you some salmon roe sushi I know it’s your favo-” 

He knew how _old_ he was too? How did this information keep leaking out? What the fuck was this about salmon roe Squalo never even _eaten_ the thing- If this is what this one letter contained, what the hell else could be written in the others? 

Suddenly Squalo is digging through his wastepaper basket, frantically spilling the wire contraption over, flooding his wood floor with paper balls and sticky notes before his hand plunges in and emerges victorious.

Eight. Eight of these things filled with who knew what other disturbing personal information. Dumbfounded, Squalo lays immobile on the floor, momentarily paralyzed by his own horrific thoughts before he decidedly (decidedly because Squalo certainly wasn’t _panicking_ ) tears open all eight of the letters at once.

“…Playing again, this time Tsuna really hit it outta the park, must be all push-ups Reborn-”

“…won the semi-finals! It would be awesome if we could make it past regionals. Haha I know you don’t really care but there’s really nothing else but baseball to ta-”

Even in his letters, why did he have to _write it out, “haha”,_ like Squalo needed to _hear_ that-

“…time when you come back I could make you some hand-rolls I’ve gotten pretty good, Dad says after the baseball sea-”

“…grew _enormous_ so I had to walk out of the bathroom naked and then Dino and Reborn came in with blow-dryers and I threw on my baseball uniform, it was kinda gross cause I just changed out of it to take a bath and it was all sweaty-” 

The lead in about Yamamoto running naked out his bathroom Squalo refused to think about seriously, and instead wondered at the ridiculousness of baseball instead of the generally idiocy of the kid. Did the brat have nothing to talk about but that game? What the fuck was Yamamoto doing wasting his sword talents, and right after he took the ring?! Squalo goes back to re-read all the letters more thoroughly. If the stupid kid was doing nothing but baseball Squalo might actually have to corner him and _beat him shitty senseless_ to take being a swordsman _seriously_.

Four knocks pound into his door while he tries not to chuck any of the mail away after reading a succession of “haha’s” and “Superbi’s” (when did that brat get so familiar, weren’t the Japanese supposed to be _polite_ ) and read as patiently and slowly as he could.

“Squalo~! Squaloooo~ it’s time to eat and you need to come entertain me.”

“He’s probably locked away starry-eyed reading his love letters.”

Squalo one-handedly chucks the wastepaper can at the door at supersonic speed, eyes glued to the paper while with each word his vow to keep calm slowly melts away. Baseball baseball baseball, and then tedious everyday descriptions with that stupid Tenth and food monologues. Did Yamamoto have no dedication? How many hours, no- minutes probably, did he even use to practice his swordsmanship?! Was he going to waste all the work he already did when training for the ring battles?

He was going to _make_ that katana brat see what a freakish waste of time that simple _sport_ was.

-0-

As soon as the package arrives in their mailbox, Yamamoto knows what it is. He doesn’t even need to rip off the paper to know which fight is on the tape, he’s memorized them all.

“Yo, Takeshi, anything interesting?”

“Haha no, just some coupons and a bank statement for you dad, I’ll leave it on the table!”

When he’s done doling out the mail to their various places, he goes to his room upstairs and flops down at the bed. Lying back, arm stretched out before him, he stares up at the rectangular package in his hand, the silhouette of the gift against the lamplight somehow filling him with simple unrestrained happiness. Squalo sent him something in return. 

Yamamoto wasn’t the type to get easily discouraged, and he knew that Squalo had a really strange way of expressing, well, anything but irritation and bloodthirsty-ness, but all the same, it was…a bit disappointing when he’d tried so hard in all his letters. 

It’s hard to know why Yamamoto felt so incredibly buoyant after getting just one thing, but he doesn’t try and dull the exuberance. No matter how many times he tells himself, he can’t stop staring at the thing, all he could do was turn it left and right with his wrist as his grin keeps getting wider and happier.

Maybe he could call him on the phone?

-0-

A scratchy fumble sounds out on the other end. Squalo gets really impatient so he starts yelling right way.

“EITHER LEARN TO USE THE GODDAMN PHONE OR DON’T BOTHER USING THOSE CLUMSY BASEBALL FINGERS TO DISTURB PEOPLE _WHO HAVE THINGS TO DO_.”

Another crackle rings out, not that Squalo could tell over his own hoarse voice. “Ahaha, I tried to text you but you didn’t send anything back so I thought I’d call instead.”

That’s because Squalo absolutely refused to answer anything with smiley faces after _every single sentence_.

“Well I just wanted to say that Tsuna’s going to be there in three weeks, so I thought I’d come and see what you’re doing.”

“FUCKING BUSY. I’LL BE FUCKING BUSY AND CAN’T SEE BRATS WHO DON’T KNOW THEIR HILT FROM THE BLADE AND DON’T YOU DARE START ANOTHER SENTACE WITH “HAHA” OR I WILL GUT YOU THROUGH THIS PHONE.”

“Ha-urgk.” Yamamoto coughs a few more times cheerfully to make sure Squalo knew that he wasn’t laughing so he wouldn’t get hung up on like the last four times. “Sunday evening it is, since you don’t do any work but get Xanxus’ chateaubriand.”

“WHAT THE FUCK HOW DO YOU KN- NO I DON’T CARE. WHATEVER BRAT. IF I SEE YOU ANYWHERE IN ITALY I’M GOING COME AND _CUT YOU DOWN_ SO YOU BETTER BE PREPARED TO DIE.”

“Aha-glruk. Ugh.. Ahem yeah ok. I’ll be happy to see you too, Squalo!”

When the phone hangs up Squalo looks at the horrid thing in his hand like it’s back flipped into a pool of jello. He didn’t understand how this was happening. At first, it was a fluke, he’d picked up the unlisted number thinking it was Levi that bastard, and Lussuria trying to prank call him about doing a women’s shampoo ad again, and he was about to scream at them so loud that they’d start bleeding out their asses.

But as soon as he heard that stupid, cheerful laughter he’d hung up the phone. Texts started to flood him after multiple voicemails went unanswered. He wasn’t going to talk to an unfocused beginner and _how the hell did Yamamoto even know his phone number in the first place_? He kept talking about things he shouldn’t know and it was really unnerving, and Squalo really wouldn’t give a fuck expect that this just _came out of nowhere_ , Yamamoto trying strike up this thing like they were _friends_ or something. No matter how many times Squalo shut him down he kept on coming back up and sometimes Squalo would think about him during the day now randomly and that was _unacceptable_.

He broke down after getting another inane letter, finally answering the phone, thinking if he yelled enough at Yamamoto maybe those stupid things would stop being mailed to him. It’d been a downward spiral from there. No more poorly written mail, except the occasional packets of photos, but now he was inundated by distasteful texts and calls that were irritatingly convenient and well-timed.

Squalo doesn’t understand how he got sucked into Yamamoto’s pace and sometimes when the brat is talking to him like they’re _close_ , for a brief moment, he believes it.

-0-

This time, he really was going to kill him. After that boring, pathetic visit from the rain guardian that involved _no blood or swords_ and instead disturbingly accurate observations about Squalo himself, Yamamoto had not once started practicing his sword again.

He knew that just because he was in Japan didn’t mean that he was obligated to visit the brat but he was obligated to give him _the beating of a lifetime_.

“What have you been doing with your time? Did you think I made those videos for _fun_?!”

A bat and helmet clatter to the ground. Yamamoto’s stunned face only lasts for a second before he suddenly looks happy and Squalo can’t believe he had the _nerve_ to be so overjoyed when he was about to get blasted to next Sunday!

“S-Squalo! Haha did you wait for me after practice? I can’t believe you’re here, even though the last two times you came to Japan you didn’t vi-”

“This isn’t a fucking social call!”

The strapped sword swings up between them and in the narrow space of the locker room Yamamoto had no time to dodge as the sharp edge cut delicately into his throat as he tried not to breathe too hard. 

“You’re going to pick up your sword and you’re going to _fight me_ so I can beat you fucking senseless. Understand?”

Squalo really did look genuinely pissed off and for once Yamamoto wasn’t so clueless as to ignore the frustration close to pain in the other’s eyes. It just never occurred to him that maybe Squalo felt a bit of that same disappointment over the effect of his videos the same way Yamamoto had felt about his letters.

“Yeah, ok.”

As he was let up the other swordsman simply turned around, sweeping out of the locker room and banging the door open as he went out into the abandoned school field. Gathering up his bamboo sword, he always had it with him now, Yamamoto goes out to meet the other man, something like satisfaction settling into his veins as a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long time slowly came rushing back.

There’s no ceremony, without any hesitation Squalo comes to charge at a barely prepared Yamamoto. He doesn’t wait at all to go in full speed and Yamamoto doesn’t either as his sword suddenly erupts encased in rain flames. 

Since when did Yamamoto know how to control his flame? He didn’t even use it during the ring match and how did his movements get so damned _sharp_? He hadn’t been practicing Squalo _knew it_ he’d been updated every week about baseball this and Tsuna that and Gokudera making him study for five hours straight for their test. When did this brat get this _good_?

Another hit from Squalo’s side makes him turn, bending low to counter the strike. Yamamoto quickly drops his katana from his hand in the fifth form and before the trajectory can change Squalo swings his sword back to block, their blades connecting in an eerie screech near the hilt.

A vibration goes up his arm as he springs away, Squalo’s eyes widening as he realized what Yamamoto had done.

“ _VOIIIIIIIIIIIIIII WHEN IN HELL DID YOU LEARN MY MOVES_?”

Yamamoto does nothing but laugh loud in response, eyes shining with unrestricted joy as he rushes forward again to continue their duel. By now Squalo is mystified, completely confused and little pissed that he doesn’t know, _but not disappointed_. It doesn’t matter anymore, Squalo didn’t care he was actually _fighting_ and it was fucking fantastic.

Nothing matters now as Squalo abandons everything and from out his hand flames wild and crazed rush out to engulf his blade too. The sudden satisfied glint matching in Yamamoto’s eyes reciprocate the feeling.

They weren’t going to be done for a while 

-0-

Later that night, after Yamamoto patched up his slashed leg and arm, the cut under his chin and well, every where else, Squalo put up his feet on the table at Takesushi downstairs, fully sated in his bloodlust.

The sudden need to gut the young guardian had gone back to his habitual irritation, Squalo’s head unable to even form the question why what just happened had happened. The lassitude after a good duel still simmered in his veins, making him more receptive when Yamamoto had laughingly asked him to come and have sushi after.

A simple but well made platter with plenty of varieties was pushed in front of the silver haired man. 

“Hey, how come there’s so many of this kind and not the others?”

“Haha, why don’t you try it first?”

The usual laugh that spills from Yamamoto’s lips doesn’t even register as Squalo shrugs and pops one in his mouth, flavor bursting in his mouth while chewing in as unmannerly a way as possible. As he made his way around the plate, testing out each type in maki, nigiri, and inari, he finds himself drawn back to the first kind he tried.

“Somehow I knew that would be your favorite one.”

It doesn’t even faze Squalo anymore. He simply eats his custom-made sushi since it wasn’t even worth expending the effort anymore to figure out what the hell Yamamoto was thinking. For the first time he lets himself relax around the younger man, and it wasn’t so bad, after all.

-0-

It builds up enough one day when Squalo realizes during the afternoon that he’d just spent _every two minutes_ thinking about the stupid brat and their fight when the text comes on his phone. Lussuria’s constant hounding about how he’d been distracted, nay, _mooning_ , were the last straw. _He can’t stand it_ , he needs to know how in the world everything turned out this way and why Yamamoto has his phone number. So he ends up jumping to the second story of Takesushi, prying open the cracked window to startle a very concentrated Yamamoto reading a sports magazine in his bed.

When he yells his demand, the young rain guardian gives him the short end of the story of the future.

“After the ten-year-bazooka, I found it on my, Yamamoto’s, cell phone one day, so I memorized it. You aren’t so bad in the future, we got along pretty great. It’s weird to pretend I’m a stranger, I can’t just shut that off, you know?”

Somehow Squalo needs to emphasize that “We’re _not friends_ , and we won’t ever be friends, _got that_?” 

“Haha, I never really said I wanted to be friends.”

He tries to imagine away that clear, unshakably knowledgeable look because _when did this happen how did this happen_ , but Yamamoto like always, drags Squalo into action with his subversive tactics.

When he lets himself yank up the not-so terribly short kid and press his lips to that irritatingly calm face, Squalo doesn’t feel disappointed in himself. He just feels like doing it again.

 

THE END

 


End file.
